City OKs six residents for Lamar halfway house

Safe Place, located on Meldo Park, originally had 20

Todd Yates/Caller-Times
R.G. Hernandez sits in the City Council chambers along with other residents of Meldo Park on Tuesday as they wait to speak to the council about Safe Place in their neighborhood.

Todd Yates/Caller-Times A handful of residents from the Meldo Park neighborhood were matching t-shirts gather in the Corpus Christi city council chambers as they wait to speak to the council about The Safe House in their neighborhood Tuesday, April 15, 2008.

Todd Yates/Caller-Times A handful of residents from the Meldo Park neighborhood were matching t-shirts gather in the Corpus Christi city council chambers as they wait to speak to the council about The Safe House in their neighborhood Tuesday, April 15, 2008.

Six people may live in a halfway house in a Lamar Park neighborhood after the City Council considered their request and the orders of a federal judge.

The home, Safe Place, 326 Meldo Park, housed about 20 adults recovering from drug and alcohol addiction, serving as a halfway house between clinical treatment and independent living. The city began looking into the home in early 2006 after neighbors complained.

The home's owner, Cody Smithers, said 15 residents were living there last month and eight are living there now.

Zoning rules in the neighborhood allow only single-family homes, and city officials determined that about 20 adults paying to live at Safe Place do not constitute a single family. Smithers faced fines of as much as $2,000 a day.

Smithers sued in federal court, claiming the city violated the U.S. Fair Housing Act and discriminated against Safe Place residents based on disability. The city argued that Safe Place was by definition a boarding house that violated city ordinance because it was in a single-family neighborhood.

A federal judge ruled last month the city did not discriminate and left intact the city's rule that five people be allowed to live there.

Safe Place has until the end of the week to abide by the judge's ruling to reduce the number of residents.

About 20 neighbors attended Tuesday's City Council meeting, which considered the issue in closed session.

"We'd prefer it to be five, but we're OK with six," said Mark Mierzwa, who lives next door to Safe Place.

The city made the same offer nearly two years ago, but Smithers declined and instead moved forward with a federal suit.

Smithers said he and the others plan to abide by the city's rulings. Many of those staying there already have found other places to live.

"It makes it a little bit harder on people staying here financially (with fewer in the house) because there's strength in numbers," he said.

Other Meldo Park residents now wonder how the city will monitor the situation to ensure only six people live there.

City Attorney Mary Kay Fischer said the city will check with the homeowner to make sure they are in compliance, but she's not sure which department will handle that.